Tagged: Lianne Dalziel

I’m an even bigger noob to it than Lianne so I’m probably doing it wrong, but here are my tweets in response to the electionresults yesterday. 140 characters is good training in conciseness, but I can’t help but add a few more comments now that I’m back in my natural habitat.

ECan notwithstanding, there’s definitely been a leftward shift on the city council … People’s Choice have one councillor elected in each ward except Fendalton-Waimairi (the most they’ve had since councillor numbers halved in 2004) and several of the independents lean to the (relative) left too. It’s looking like a dream council for Dalziel and certainly a change from the Parker/Marryatt-era council.

Local government elections usually favour incumbents, but this time the mayor and nine of the 13 councillors are new faces. Eight councillors sought re-election – three People’s Choice, who all survived, and five I-Citz/City 1st, of whom Jamie Gough is the only survivor.

Four of these I-Citz/City 1st voted for Marryatt’s pay-rise … three are gone, and Gough has a lot to thank The Press for. Aaron Keown has managed to hold onto his community board and health board seats despite being booted off council – though he’s sitting at a precarious 7th on the health board preliminary results. Let’s hope special votes bump Heather Symes above him. (If they don’t, I’m blaming you non-voters).

Elected councillors by parties/groupings:
People’s Choice – 6
‘network of the likeminded’ – 3
I-Citz – 1
City 1st – 0
Other – 3 (Scandrett is former People’s Choice, Lonsdale might as well be National, I don’t know anything about David East)

Though political scientist Bryce Edwards suggests maybe we shouldn’t vote in this year’s local body elections, I’ve never missed an opportunity to vote in any local or national election (anarchist sympathies notwithstanding).

Canterbury District Health Board members (rank as many/few as you like, up to 26) (Updated9/10/2013)7 are elected but your votes are almost guaranteed to be transferred further down your list, so it’s worth ranking at least 12 if you can bring yourself to do so. I’ve ranked 25 to give my votes the maximum chance of contributing to anyone but Keown (see below).

The spectre of a possible leadership challenge in Labour isn’t going away as long as David Shearer remains incoherent, visionless and powerless against John Key. A lot of good stuff has been said about this whole mess by The Standard, Tumeke, Chris Trotter, Gordon Campbell, Brian Edwardsetc, but I want to highlight one sad result of the ongoing dominance of the caucus by the old guard, anti-democratic, right-leaning, “Anyone but Cunliffe” clique.

Most notable among these demotions is Lianne Dalziel, who goes from list rank 14 to the unranked back benches with Cunliffe and most of his other supporters. This is a slap in the face to Dalziel who has been a tireless advocate for Christchurch, and an advocate for the East and the people against Brownlee’s support of big business in the recovery. Unfortunately for her, she has also been an advocate for the democratisation of the Labour party and for a return to its left-wing roots. The only two Canterbury-based MPs in Labour’s top 20 now are Clayton Cosgrove (who has no earthquake-related portfolios) and Megan Woods (who moves off the back benches to number 20).

Of course, the lack of Christchurch representation in Labour isn’t new. Christchurch people, who tend to be more working class than Auckland or Wellington, are more left than liberal; that is, they seem to be more attracted to a classic left politics of economic justice, as embodied by the last great Christchurch prime minister Norman Kirk, rather than the liberal identity politics that Labour has turned to since Kirk’s time. I’m a lot more supportive of Mana and the Greens than what Labour have become, but I’d still hope that Labour would prioritise the Canterbury region at the moment. If they really want to win back the city, they should be articulating a powerful people-first alternative to Brownlee’s way of doing things – not to mention to school closures and the steamrolling of ECAN.

I’ve remarked before that “Anyone but Cunliffe” should apparently be taken in its full possible meaning: “Key rather than Cunliffe”. It’s very sad that it apparently also means “Brownlee rather than Dalziel”.

…

Here’s the full numbers for the reshuffle; list and portfolios are here, I’ve noted promotions, demotions, locations and (suspected) factions/cliques. Sue Moroney is the only exception to the general pattern.

‘Cunliffe’ supporters are taken from TV3’s Patrick Gower, so should be taken with a massive grain of salt. ‘Old Guard’ are taken from bloggers Chris Trotter and The Standard, who seem to have have been a lot more honest on these matters than the mainstream media (please note this conflates various groups that don’t necessarily fit together neatly: the ‘old guard’, opponents of democratisation, neo-liberals or those fearful of returning to the left, and supporters of Shearer). The rest all most likely support Shearer, but have been less vocal about it.

After an eleventh-hour resurrection of Cut Your Hair just before the 2017 NZ election, the blog has re-overtaken its old rivals Put ’em all on an island, Keeping Stock and, the ultimate nemesis, Room 5 @ Melville Intermediate School.

(However, these rankings should be taken with a large grain of salt because not every blog is included, the stats are very fakeable, and each counter gives different stats, as you’ll see below)